My Greatest College Educator: a Eulogy for Michael Brooks
2015 was my freshman year of college. I had just completed a gap year after high school, working part time jobs and spending several months travelling the countries on the west coast of South America excluding Chile. My trip taught me to appreciate struggles that I had never had to endure. While I slept in hostel dorms and couchsurfed, there was a whole world of people I witnessed living in conditions completely unfamiliar to me: food insecurity, severe underdevelopment and poverty. It’s one thing to read about struggle, it was something else entirely to see it for myself. But despite what I saw, the cliché I had heard repeated from my father throughout my life, “those with little are happier than those with a lot,” seemed to ring true. Underneath the dilapidation, inequality and poverty, there was a triumphant spirit. A spirit of desire to progress, to care for one’s family, community, and to live a life of meaning outside the context of consumerism. People often invited me to stay in their homes and I spent roughly a month of my trip living with locals I met along the way. This kind of hospitality could never be expected in the United States even though we live in comparative abundance to those in South America. Coming back to the United States was horrendous for me, the ‘reverse culture shock’ sent me into a depressive malaise that still colors my perspective. That formative experience pushed me to study international history and politics because I wanted to understand what I experienced in Latin America.
My freshman year of college was spent in the beautiful mountain town of Gunnison Colorado at Western State University. Two of my politics and government professors were constant insparations to me. One was Bulgarian, the other from DC. They were generous with their feedback on my writing, pushing me to further develop my political understanding. This was also 2016, a ripe year for political discourse. I became a staunch Berniecrat and began to connect the dots between my international experience and the plight of periphery nations under the decades old economic austerity imposed on these nations by the World Bank and IMF. It was the beginning of my political awakening, and after getting accepted to the Josef Korbel School of International Studies I was driven to transfer from Gunnison in favor of a degree program that was more closely linked to the United States foreign policy. It wasn’t until I had left my two inspiring professors and community of outdoor recreation addicts that I had another kind of political awakening, one that came in the form of exposure to an institution built on the legacy of neoliberalism. My new college was focused on educating students on two primary theories of preferred international order, economic liberalism or hard nosed realism. Although I could understand the value of these two systems of thought and understand their presuppositions, I could never quite accept that these two modes of international relations theory were the only viable frameworks for interpreting politics. Trapped in a world of uncritical policy wonks, it felt like there was no room for exploration of new or alternative forms of international relations theory and particular kinds of dissent were tacitly disapproved of. Part of me regretted leaving my open minded, straight shooting professors in the mountains. The other part of me was grateful to have had a first hand look into the ideology of American imperialism somewhere closer to its nexus.
While trudging through my degree program I discovered Michael Brooks, who opened my eyes to the exact alternative modes of internationalism that I had been craving. Brooks proposed a third alternative, laying out a comprehensive critique of the Korbel orthodoxies and generating a novel framework for understanding international relations theory. He inspired me to pursue history, to be politically active, and to have hope for a future politics untainted by the dictates of professional managerial types, mindlessly extolling the virtues and inevitability of empire. I became obsessed with his work as it gave me a new way of perceiving and contextualizing the ideology I felt at odds with each day. Brooks gave me a framework from which to operate much like Bernie Sanders; a worldview capable of imagining alternative futures and understanding the reality of the past. Michael Brooks had a real, concrete understanding of history that was melded with an unyielding demand that human rights and dignity must and can be achieved. Despite never meeting him I, like many others, was a parasocial pupil of Brooks. The contrast between what I learned from TMBS and what I learned in the classroom was black and white which allowed me to challenge the assumptions of neoliberalism I heard every single day. Michael Brooks taught me to retain my spirit of caring for every last human being in every last nation on this earth, a dimension of thought that dominated Brooks’ politics. It is for this reason that I would like to assert that he was my greatest educator throughout college.
Michael Brooks was one of a kind. Passionate about ending unnecessary human suffering and building a better future, Michael’s vision was to overcome the oppressive forces of late stage capitalism by cultivating new understandings and modes of being politically active. I wrote this piece to commemorate his legacy and discuss his global impact.
Michael Brooks was born August 13th, 1983 in Brooklyn, New York. Under economic hardship, Michael’s parents fled New York to raise their children in Western Massachusetts. Brooks described his parents as “being very influenced by the counterculture,” designing an idiosyncratic regimen of homeschooling and self-directed reading. With the backdrop of family food insecurity, his precocity fixated on the liberatory philosophy of Malcolm X, the theorizations of Ken Wilber and the radical history of Howard Zinn. Michaels early reading habits cultivated a rare ability to immerse himself in disparate topics which would eventually blossom into a Chompsky-esque command of political history. Later in life as he would effortlessly dissect topics ranging from the politics of Latin America, the minutiae of Carribean social movement history, to the contemporary rise of the global far right, it became clear to anybody who happened across his YouTube broadcast that they were witnessing the emergence of a special talent. After completing high school Brooks studied International Politics at Bates College and The Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. In his late twenties, Brooks got his big break. He was offered a spot on the Majority Report with Sam Seder.
For many years Michael helped co-host the Majority Report, conducting interviews, developing hysterical impressions, and further elevating his analysis of international relations, politics and history, but while his career took off at the Majority Report, it didn’t explode until he started his own show, “very inventively” named The Michael Brooks Show (TMBS). In the two and a half years Michael worked on TMBS, he went from starting his own show with few significant guests to interviewing the likes of Cornel West, Adolph Reed, Slavoj Zizek, Noam Chomsky and most notably for Michael, former Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Brooks went from being a minor figure for the online left to getting millions of channel views within the first six months of the show. Anyone who was a regular viewer of TMBS from 2017 to 2020 could tell you that it was unimaginable that Michael Brooks could grow his audience, online relevance, and impact in such a short period of time. His tireless work and rise to relevance in the online politi-sphere were miraculous.
What Michael did beyond these notable interviews on TMBS, was to unify disparate voices on the left in order to clarify complex sociopolitical dynamics and generate a cohesive narrative about the reality of the world, a world that for Michael was international in scope and held at its core the fundamental truth that all human beings deserve basic dignity in the form of a good education, shelter, food, and healthcare. A deep awareness of the experience of poverty drove Michaels work. He was obsessed with educating himself on political regimes all around the world that were successful in their attempts to end poverty and give freedom to people suffering under the odious boot of neoliberal imperialism. Brooks educated his audience on figures underrepresented in Western media, effacing the celebrity warship of business tycoons for a pantheon of people's heroes, including the likes of Thomas Sankara, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva, Kofi Annan and many others. If it wasn’t for Michael Brooks, myself and many others would have had no idea who leaders like Lula were and couldn’t imagine the scope of possibilities for labor movements in the modern world. Michael used real world stories about real world leaders, movements, and concepts to educate us on how to become active in our communities and ignite an imagination for change.
Unafraid of argument, Michael conducted his work by stating his opinion clearly. He spoke openly, honestly, and was always ready to have his position challenged so that he could fortify his reasoning. Brooks never wanted to be the center of truth but rather a conduit of it. Partisan posturing was antithetical to Michael’s character, and his commitment to human flourishing overcame any left/right binary or party allegiances. He was always refining his beliefs by having people he looked up to on his show. Ben Burgis, Adolph Reed, Joshua Khan Russel, and so many others came onto TMBS to educate Michael and his audience on their area of experience. Michael Brooks was all about intellectual growth, and on his quest for truth he brought people together to share and conquer that common goal. Michael’s clarity of strategic thinking, humanistic worldview, and allergy to alienation are distilled here in a statement he made during a livestream the day before his death –
“What does it actually mean to be truly global to the extent we can? Local, national, international simultaneously, north, west, east, south but from a place of actual growth and empathy. This is where questions of consciousness come in, the question of cultivating empathy, cultivating compassion, cultivating awareness; the complete antithesis of social media modes. Long term thinking, compassion, seeing complexity, comfort with oneself, solitude, the opposite of instant gratification, the attempt to constantly humanize and not dehumanize your fellow humans; these are all completely countervailing forces to the market techno-logic that subsumes all of us today.”
It goes without saying that Michael’s emphasis on internationalism was a cornerstone of his political project. In Michael’s view, developing global worker solidarity was a serious political and spiritual necessity. In order to generate this kind of awareness in people, Michael believed it was essential to understand the leaders, economic systems, and material conditions of countries all around the world. Not just in the present but of course, historically as well. Today, most political commentators on the left shy away from discussing international politics because of the sheer depth of knowledge one must acquire to even be able to truly begin to understand the world itself in a global, interconnected context. Michael discussed the regional dynamics of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America extensively. It’s important to ask why Michael Brooks cared so much about Brazil specifically? He gives us this answer in a show he hosted in the midst of the lawfare conspiracy against Lula “One of the reasons I do think Brazil is so important is it’s going to reflect and parallel other situations we face.” This quote speaks to Michael’s ability to conduct comparative politics, the field of political science that empirically “compares political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development.” Brooks was constantly comparing the political and economic systems of different countries to draw parallels and generate a narrative that engendered a global outlook, one where we could see connections between seemingly disparate countries. Michael’s ability to research a topic, process knowledge, and translate that knowledge into a larger political context in a digestible and easy to understand way is what made him such a powerful orator. There simply is no comparable voice on the left who covered international politics as comprehensively as Brooks did.
After decades of neoliberal austerity, brutal warfare, realist thinking and mainstream ignorance of alternative international relations theories in America, Michael Brooks entered the conversation with his own version of international relations theory: cosmopolitan socialism. Brooks had an awareness of the ‘triumph of the professional managerial class,’ in the United States and saw the two parties as a bastions for Ivy league elites who believed change in society must be conducted solely by highly educated, beltway political maneuvering. It is precisely this socio political movement which has ushered us to the brink of ecological catastrophe, uncountable human rights abuses, and corporate oligarchy in the age of neoliberalism. As I have mentioned before, Brooks, like many of his contemporaries believed that the way to build a lasting political movement that actually makes life better in reality, can only be achieved through organized labor and class conflict. By bringing workers into politics, the professional managerial class would have its role diminished and the aspirations and demands of the most disenfranchised on Earth could be realized. It is this message of hope for a generation of oppressed workers to one day unify and create a better world that resonated so strongly with so many. Michael always managed to tie this broader political project to a concrete understanding of power. He was also unafraid to work within the framework of electoralism and thought that despite its shortcomings, democracy could bring about necessary change if the left could capture the power it needs. Hence Michaels strong support for the working-class platform of candidate Bernie Sanders during both the 2016 and 2020 election cycles.
It is important to note here that Michael Brooks had a harsh ‘critique of wokeness,’ and saw identity politics/ cancel culture as a destructive, unviable framework for building effective institutions, generating material progress and unifying people. In the words of Michael’s sister Lisha Brooks, “Michael was so done with identity politics and cancel culture. He was showing so clearly that we build a world where people can listen to one another through all of their differences without shutting down or turning to violence, that together we need not to define who we are, that we’re all in this together. Which did not mean that we give up the fight for peace and justice, or treating people with integrity and respect, just that we fight that fight more skillfully.” It is this sentiment of complete unabashed solidarity with the suffering of all human beings that gave Michael’s work a spiritual component that rose above the petty dramas and ‘woke posturing,’ which has and still is dragging our political world deeper into divisive, non-compassionate and oftentimes violent places. Michael’s critique of woke culture is one that identified the harsh secularism of the left as a problem and suggested a spiritual solution. This absence of spirituality on the left was something that Michael Brooks felt was critical to overcome if the left ever wishes to win power and change the world. In Michael’s words; “Why allow Steve Bannon to have a monopoly on the bhagavad-gita?” Michael was unafraid to learn from and appreciate the political successes of the right and attempt to integrate right wing strategies around power into left wing political spaces with the understanding that strategy and ideology are distinct categories. Brooks was the modern leftist with the best critique of the modern left.
This tribute would be incomplete without mentioning Michaels most memorable talent, his outrageous comic impersonations. The first moments of audio from the premiere of The Michael Brooks Show (TMBS) on August 8th, 2017 were in the character of a jaded right-wing talking head; “The Michael Brooks Show is another pathetic piece of ultra-left propaganda which is designed for resentful virgins as well as aging lesbians and those men who aspire to be like them.” Michael then goes onto doing his ‘Bernie or Bust Bill Clinton,’ his ‘Nation of Islam Obama,’ and some sort of ‘Stalinist Bernie Sanders.’ What was so incredible about Brooks’ repertoire of political impressions is that the caricatures that he performed were based on a deep sociopolitical, historical and cultural understanding of all of the figures he imitated. There are lots of great impressionists out there, but almost none who could craft alternate personalities for real people like Michael did. Take ‘Nation of Islam Obama,’ who relentlessly deplored the ‘white devil,’ and had a secret plot to create a new Mecca and destroy the white race in the United States. The impression comes off as completely absurd on your first listen, but when you spend some time with the impression you’ll soon realize what Brooks is doing is creating a representation of the idea of Obama held by people like Donald Trump and the ‘birthers’ who claimed constantly that Obama was born outside of the United States. He is revealing the absurdity of their xenophobia by shedding light on the true nature of their beliefs. Michael understood how politics worked and how people thought about politics. This was made clear by his comedy. Each of these hysterical impressions did something to elevate our awareness of an ideological framework or popular worldview.
In our fight for global human emancipation, it is unthinkable that such a powerful force as Michael Brooks could be erased from the zeitgeist. His memory lives in the hearts of so many, and his message will prevail so long as we learn to work for a better future in the way Michael would have wanted us to. We have lost a voice of reason that rose above the tide in an ocean of bad takes. As many have already pointed out, the loss of Michael Brooks is simply incalculable. A lot of us have leaned on Michael for our understanding of international affairs, and now that he’s gone, we must carry his spirit into our own study of international affairs so that we may continue to build on the legacy he has left us. I am grateful to have been a part of the TMBS universe while Michael was here, and I look forward to seeing his legacy live on through Matt Lech, David Griscom and the extended TMBS family. The loss of Michael Brooks is an ineffable tragedy.
“The left can talk about ourselves as individuals even as we talk about our broader spiritual, revolutionary and social desires. We don’t have to choose between achieving personal greatness at the expense of our neighbor or comrades. And we don’t have to choose to shrink back from challenges and transform ourselves from new systems of isolation, control and hectoring. We can live with a politics of love, community and inclusivity, we just need to build it.” - Michael Brooks
Rest in Power
